I’ve met many Scots, both colleagues and clients, over the years who often mention how ‘bracing’ the weather can be in their country. Having travelled around the world and visited many mountain ranges including The European Alps, The Rockies, The Southern Alps in New Zealand and our very own Lake District, I though that I knew what these Scots meant about rough weather.
Wrong….. How stupid could I have been? Good God the Scottish weather is on steroids, washed down with haggis, whisky and shot-blasted along by the soft dulcet tones of bagpipes. When Harriet and I arrived on the Isle of Skye for our ‘summer’ holiday last weekend, we were blown instantly to Norway !?!
Granted, we had been warned by several people that the weather may not play ball this time of year, but again we thought we knew best. We had loads of walks planned around the Cuillin Hills (for some reason the Scots call them hills and not mountains). We never got near them.
Each daily weather forecast mentioned extreme severe buffeting, rain showers and poor visibility. Any walking plans went out of the window, off over to Norway in fact.
We did our best to get out each day bouncing off each other in the buffeting. There was one time when poor Harriet couldn’t actually open the car door because of the wind.
These photos may disguise the look of our visit, i.e. gorgeous skies all the time. To be honest, we probably only had about 10% of time with cloud-free summits. And two days out of five I didn’t risk taking a photo.
We just adapted our walks to low level, close to the Lochs and enjoyed more seascapes than landscapes. When the clouds did clear briefly it was a very special experience, just like this shot below. But only three minutes later we got drenched and were air lifted in a flash back over to Norway yet again with the wind.
Would we come back again to the Isle of Skye? You betcha. But with different expectations. It’s a mind-blowingly pretty part of the country. We stayed at an amazing bed and breakfast called Coruisk House in Elgol, run by a top chap called Iain who cooks the best ever full-blown fry up that he calls ‘The Full Elgol’.
It’s now just over four weeks to go before I head back to Méribel, so with that in mind my next post will be much more skiing related. Can’t wait to catch up with some of my Scottish chums and nod with respect the next time they bang on about the Scottish weather.
Martin
P.S. Seriously though. We had a great time. The light for photography was spectacular at times. And the mountains, oh those mountains.
